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Balancing Privacy and the Public Interest: The Application of the ‘General Measures’ Doctrine in L.B. v Hungary in the Absence of Any Substantive Proportionality Assessment

ECtHR 9 March 2023, No. 36345/14, L.B. v Hungary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Harriet Ní Chinnéide Open the ORCID record for Harriet Ní Chinnéide [Opens in a new window]
Harriet Ní Chinnéide*
Affiliation:
Hasselt University, Belgium, email: harriet.nichinneide@uhasselt.be
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Abstract

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Type
Case Note
Information
European Constitutional Law Review , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , March 2024 , pp. 146 - 162
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of University of Amsterdam

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References

1 ECtHR 9 March 2023, No. 36345/14, L.B. v Hungary (GC).

2 ECtHR 22 April 2013, No. 48876/08, Animal Defenders International v the United Kingdom (GC).

3 O.M. Arnardóttir, ‘The “Procedural Turn” under the European Convention on Human Rights and Presumptions of Convention Compliance’, 15(1) International Journal of Constitutional Law (2017) p. 9.

4 L.B. v Hungary (GC), supra n. 1, paras. 10-13.

5 Ibid., para. 14.

6 Ibid., para. 15.

7 Ibid., paras. 25-27.

8 ECtHR 12 January 2021, No. 36345/16, L.B. v Hungary, paras. 42-26.

9 Ibid., paras. 51-72.

10 L.B. v Hungary, supra n. 8, dissenting opinion of Judges Ravarani and Schukking, para. 2.

11 Ibid., para. 15.

12 Ibid., para. 13.

13 Ibid., para. 13.

14 L.B. v Hungary (GC), supra n. 1, paras. 139-140.

15 Ibid., para. 122.

16 Ibid., para. 127.

17 Ibid., para. 124.

18 Ibid., para. 125.

19 Ibid., para. 128.

20 Ibid., para. 129.

21 Ibid., para. 130.

22 Ibid., para. 126.

23 Ibid., para. 132.

24 Ibid., para. 134.

25 Ibid., para. 135.

26 Ibid., para. 136.

27 Ibid., para. 137.

28 L.B. v Hungary (GC), supra n. 1, concurring opinion of Judge Kūris paras. 1, 8, and 12.

29 Animal Defenders International v the United Kingdom (GC), supra n. 2, para. 116.

30 L.B. v Hungary (GC), supra n. 1, concurring opinion of Judge Kūris, para. 16.

31 Ibid., partly concurring and partly dissenting opinion of Judge Serghides, paras. 1-3.

32 L.B. v Hungary (GC), supra n. 1, dissenting opinion of Judges Wojtyczek and Paczolay, para. 1.

33 Ibid., dissenting opinion of Judges Wojtyczek and Paczolay, para. 6.

34 Ibid.

35 Ibid., dissenting opinion of Judges Wojtyczek and Paczolay, para. 28: ‘Furthermore, Parliament itself put in place safeguards to tightly restrict disclosure, tailoring the provisions of the 2003 Tax Administration Act to the risk posed by the tax debtor to public revenue and to potential business partners. Firstly, only those individual tax debtors whose tax debts exceeded HUF 10 million (€28,000) came within the sweep of the publication requirement. Secondly, an additional precondition for publication on the list of major tax debtors was that the taxpayer had failed to fulfil his or her payment obligations for 180 days. We find these thresholds material to the assessment of the proportionality of the measure here in issue. We thus consider that the legislature made the necessary distinction between different types of taxpayers subject to disclosure, limiting the interference with private life to those whose conduct presented a considerable risk to public revenue or to potential business interests.’

36 Ibid., dissenting opinion of Judges Wojtyczek and Paczolay, para. 31.

37 ECtHR, 24 July 2003, No. 46133/99, Smirnova v Russia, para. 95.

38 ECtHR, 9 October 2012, No. 42811/06, Alkaya v Turkey, para. 30.

39 L.B. v Hungary, supra n. 8, dissenting opinion of Judges Ravarani and Schukking, para. 15.

40 X. Rudd, ‘Public Disclosure of Personal Data before the European Court of Human Rights and the General Court of the European Union’, ERA Forum (3 July 2023) https://doi.org/10.1007/s12027-023-00755-8, visited 5 February 2024.

41 Ibid., para. 2.5.3.

42 Arnardóttir, supra n. 3.

43 L.R. Helfer, ‘Redesigning the European Court of Human Rights: Embeddedness as a Deep Structural Principle of the European Human Rights Regime’, 19 European Journal of International Law (2008) p. 159.

44 ECtHR, ‘Dialogue between Judges’, European Court of Human Rights, Council of Europe (2006) p. 35 https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/d/echr/Dialogue_2006_ENG, visited 5 February 2024.

45 S. Greer and L. Wildhaber, ‘Revisiting the Debate about “Constitutionalising” the European Court of Human Rights’, 12 Human Rights Law Review (2013) p. 656.

46 Helfer, supra n. 43.

47 O. Stiansen and E. Voeten, ‘Backlash and Judicial Restraint: Evidence from the European Court of Human Rights’, 64 International Studies Quarterly (2020) p. 770 at p. 771. Note that other less traditionally Convention-compliant states were also involved in the push for greater subsidiarity, but in general when we speak about the procedural turn, the focus is on traditionally Convention-compliant states who argued for greater subsidiarity on the basis that the Convention values had been substantially embedded into their domestic systems.

48 J. Gerards, ‘Procedural Review by the ECtHR – A Typology’, in J. Gerards and E. Brems (eds.), Procedural Review in European Fundamental Rights Cases (Cambridge University Press 2017) p. 127.

49 Ibid.

50 P. Popelier, ‘Procedural Rationality Review after Animal Defenders International: A Constructively Critical Approach’, 15 EuConst (2019) p. 272.

51 Animal Defenders International v the United Kingdom (GC), supra n. 2, paras. 108-109.

52 Ibid., para. 116.

53 Ibid., para. 124.

54 Ibid., dissenting opinion of Judges Ziemele, Sajó, Kalaydjieva, Vučinić and De Gaetano.

55 Ibid., dissenting opinion of Judges Ziemele, Sajó, Kalaydjieva, Vučinić and De Gaetano, para. 3.

56 Ibid., dissenting opinion of Judges Ziemele, Sajó, Kalaydjieva, Vučinić and De Gaetano, para. 9.

57 ECtHR 20 September 2011, No. 48703/08, Verein gegen Tierfabriken Schweiz (VgT) v Switzerland.

58 Animal Defenders International v the United Kingdom (GC), supra n. 2, dissenting opinion of Judges Ziemele, Sajó, Kalaydjieva, Vučinić and De Gaetano, para. 9.

59 Ibid., dissenting opinion of Judges Ziemele, Sajó, Kalaydjieva, Vučinić and De Gaetano, para. 10.

60 Ibid.

61 L.B. v Hungary (GC), supra n. 1, para. 130.

62 Ibid., concurring opinion of Judge Kūris, para. 5.

63 See E. Brems, ‘The “Logics” of Procedural-Type Review by the European Court of Human Rights’, in Gerards and Brems, supra n. 48, p. 17.

64 Ibid., p. 20.

65 L.B. v Hungary (GC), supra n. 1, dissenting opinion of Judges Wojtyczek and Paczolay, para. 19.

66 Ibid., dissenting opinion of Judges Wojtyczek and Paczolay, paras. 7-13.

67 Ibid., concurring opinion of Judge Kūris, para. 7.

68 Ibid.

69 Ibid.

70 Ibid., concurring opinion of Judge Kūris, para. 8.

71 A. Nussberger, ‘Procedural Review by the European Court of Human Rights – View from the Court’, in Gerards and Brems, supra n. 48, p. 161.

72 ECtHR 6 October 2005, Hirst v the United Kingdom (No. 2).

73 See B. Çali, ‘Coping with Crisis: Whither the Variable Geometry in the European Court of Human Rights’, 35(2) Wisconsin International Law Journal (2018) p. 237.

74 Nussberger, supra n. 71, p. 163.

75 L.B. v Hungary (GC), supra n. 1, concurring opinion of Judge Kūris, para. 17.

76 Ibid., concurring opinion of Judge Kūris, para. 11.

77 L.B. v Hungary, supra n. 8, dissenting opinion of Judges Ravarani and Schukking.

78 L.B. v Hungary (GC), supra n. 1, concurring opinion of Judge Kūris, para. 27.

79 Ibid., para. 89.

80 ECtHR 25 May 2021, Nos. 58170/13, 62322/14, 24960/15, Big Brother Watch and others v the United Kingdom.

81 Ibid., para. 444.

82 ECtHR 12 June 2014, No. 56030/07, Fernandez Martinez v Spain, para 147.